Criminal
A penal code organised around hadd, qisas, diya and ta'zir
The Islamic Penal Code, substantially revised in 2013, classifies punishments as hadd (fixed by scripture), qisas (retaliation), diya (blood money) and ta'zir (discretionary). Iran retains and frequently applies the death penalty.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — National, with revolutionary courts taking security, narcotics and some economic cases.
Governing law
- Islamic Penal Code 1392/2013, Books One to Five
- Code of Criminal Procedure 1392/2013
In practice
The 2013 code was the first comprehensive revision since 1991 and introduced provisions on criminal liability of legal persons and on alternatives to imprisonment, while retaining the hadd and qisas categories. Qisas cases are private in an important sense: the victim's family can demand retaliation, accept diya or forgive, and the state's role is to adjudicate the entitlement. Iran is one of a small number of states that executes a high volume of people each year, principally for narcotics and murder, and reporting by UN special procedures is the most reliable open source on practice as distinct from text.